Anadarko to Exxon Curb Gulf Output Amid Storm Evacuations

Oct. 4 (Bloomberg) -- Anadarko Petroleum Corp. and Exxon
Mobil Corp. curbed production in the Gulf of Mexico and other
energy companies evacuated workers from platforms and pipelines
after Tropical Storm Karen triggered a hurricane watch.

Exxon curtailed output by 1,000 barrels of oil equivalent a
day and pulled nonessential personnel from offshore operations
in Karen’s path. Anadarko shut and evacuated the Independence
Hub and three other platforms in the central and eastern Gulf.
BP Plc, Chevron Corp., Enterprise Products Partners LP, Marathon
Oil Corp. and Royal Dutch Shell Plc said they were also moving
personnel out of the system’s track yesterday.

The storm “appears to be heading through the heart of the
production center of the Gulf of Mexico, and that will impact
oil and gas production,” Andy Lipow, president of Lipow Oil
Associates LLC in Houston, said by telephone yesterday.

The region is home to 23 percent of U.S. oil production,
5.6 percent of gas output and more than 45 percent of petroleum
refining capacity, data compiled by the Energy Information
Administration, the Energy Department’s statistical arm, show.

Karen, no longer expected to become a hurricane, had top
sustained winds of 60 miles (95 kilometers) per hour and was
about 275 miles south-southwest of the mouth of the Mississippi
River at 8 a.m. New York time today. It was moving north-northwest at 10mph, according to a National Hurricane Center
Advisory.

Possible Path

The center’s tracking map forecasts Karen will make
landfall as a tropical storm early Oct. 6 on the southeastern
tip of Louisiana and then again close to Mobile, Alabama.

A hurricane watch, meaning storm conditions may arrive in
two days, was posted from Grand Isle, Louisiana, to west of
Destin, Florida. A tropical storm warning is in effect from
Grand Isle to the mouth of the Pearl River on the Louisiana-Mississippi line.

New Orleans, the coast from Grand Isle to Morgan City,
Louisiana, and the area from Destin to Indian Pass, Florida, are
under a tropical-storm watch.

Destin Pipeline LLC, which can transport 1.2 billion cubic
feet of gas a day from the Gulf, declared force majeure
yesterday, saying in a notice to shippers that it’s incapable of
providing transportation services from its offshore receipt
points because of the storm.

LOOP LLC, the only U.S. port capable of offloading ultra-large crude carriers, was monitoring Karen, the Covington,
Louisiana-based company said in a statement on its website.
Nexen, the Cnooc Ltd. unit based in Calgary that operates in the
Gulf, was also tracking the system.

Workers Pulled

BP, based in London, began evacuating workers Oct. 2 from
its four deepwater platforms, Thunder Horse, Na Kika, Atlantis
and Mad Dog. Marathon removed nonessential workers from the
Ewing Bank platform 130 miles south of New Orleans, the Houston-based company said on its website yesterday.

Anadarko, with headquarters in The Woodlands, Texas, halted
production and evacuated all employees from the Independence Hub
and the Neptune, Constitution and Marco Polo platforms, the
company’s website showed. The Hague-based Shell was removing
some nonessential personnel from drilling operations in the
eastern Gulf, the company said on its website.

Enterprise Products Partners LP, based in Houston, was
evacuating all workers yesterday from four platforms connecting
production to pipelines, spokesman Rick Rainey said by telephone
yesterday. One of the platforms will be shut, he said.

Platforms Emptied

Era Helicopters LLC, a Lake Charles, Louisiana-based
company that transports workers to oil and gas fields in the
Gulf, had at least one customer activate a hurricane standby
aircraft yesterday, spokeswoman Molly Hottinger said by e-mail.

Enbridge Inc.’s Manta Ray Offshore Gathering system, which
collects 800 million cubic feet of gas a day in the Gulf, began
evacuating all personnel from two platforms yesterday, the
company’s website showed. The Garden Banks Gas Pipeline LLC also
removed workers from the South Marsh Island 76 platform, a
notice to shippers shows.

“We will continue to watch the storm closely to determine
if further evacuations are necessary,” Terri Larson, an
Enbridge spokeswoman in Houston, said by e-mail yesterday.
“There is no impact to operations.”

Wind Shear

Karen may encounter wind shear as it crosses the Gulf, said
Matt Rogers, president of the Commodity Weather Group LLC in
Bethesda, Maryland. Shear, when winds blow at varying speeds or
directions at different altitudes, could tear at the storm’s
structure.

Energy markets are expecting supply disruptions to be
“rather short-lived” since the storm isn’t forecast to develop
into a major hurricane, Lipow said.

Gasoline futures for November delivery slid 0.86 cent cent,
or 0.3 percent, to $2.631 a gallon on the New York Mercantile
Exchange at 10:21 a.m. today. Oil gained 0.4 percent, and
natural gas rose 0.8 percent.